Love and Mercy is an intriguing and entertaining movie that
covers a lot of ground. Ostensibly a biopic, the film gives us a thrilling peek
into the creative process of a musical genius and simultaneously a frightful
glimpse into a disintegrating mind. At the same time, it’s a tale of abuse and
redemption, a love story, and an account of the ascension and decline of a
storied rock band. The music ain’t bad, either. Love and Mercy had its
theatrical release last June, and has just been released for home viewing
(Blue-ray, dvd, streaming, etc.). I’ve seen it twice – in my local movie palace
shortly after its release, and again last week at home. – I loved it both
times.
Love and Mercy is the second feature directed by Bill
Pohlad, the first being the unsuccessful, forgotten Old Explorers, a
quarter century ago. In the interim, he’s been a successful producer,
associated with such films as Brokeback Mountain (2005), Into The
Wild (2007), Twelve Years A Slave (2013) and Wild
(2014). So he knows a good story when he
sees one.
Brian Wilson was the architect of the Beach Boys sound, the
writer of most of their songs, and the lead voice on many. Wilson wrote pop gems likeSurfer Girl, Don’t Worry Baby,
I Get Around, In My Room, Help Me Rhonda, Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows,
Caroline No, Heroes and Villains, and of course Good Vibrations. Like Paul McCartney, his strong suit is melody,
but he is also revered for arranging those beautiful Beach Boys harmonies, and
some of his lyrics are as evocative as his tunes.
Wilson was an incredible talent, no doubt about it. He was
also introverted, diffident and seemingly ill-suited to the stress of constant
touring and the glam pop star life. In 1965, he stopped touring with his band,
preferring to focus on composing and studio work. The result was the Beach Boys
classic album, Pet Sounds, released
in the summer of 1966, considered one of the greatest pop albums of all time,
and the megahit song Good Vibrations,
released a few months later. How Brian Wilson created these masterworks is a
central focus of Love and Mercy. 
But in the midst of this process, Brian was beginning to
fall apart. It turns out he was bipolar,
and the symptoms of his (undiagnosed) illness were becoming florid. He was
obsessive, he was confused, his behavior became more and more erratic. On top
of that, like many others in his generation of rock icons, he was consuming
large quantities of drugs. To what extent the drugs triggered Wilson’s
breakdown is unclear, but there is little question that self-medication
exacerbated it. In the ensuing years, he largely dropped out of the music
scene, went into and out of multiple treatment programs, spent years as a
virtual recluse, split from his family, grew increasingly obese, and so forth.
Famously, Brian Wilson began treatment with radical
psychologist Eugene Landy in the mid-1970s, initially for about a year and
again a few years later for nearly a decade from the early 1980s until
1991. Landy initially helped to bring
Brian back from the brink, but eventually became a Svengali figure,
misdiagnosing his condition, plying him with massive quantities of
inappropriate medications, and managing all aspects of his life 24/7, including
his financial affairs, his music projects, where he went, who he saw, what he
ate, everything. Eventually, Brian was
freed from Landy’s control, got proper treatment and was able to regain control
over his life - and his music.
As you’d imagine, the full
story of that life is pretty damn complicated. (Whose life is not?) There’s
abuse at the hands of Brian’s controlling, disapproving father, Murray; forming
a band in 1961with his two brothers, his cousin and a friend; the rapid rise to
stardom at age twenty with the Beach Boys’ surfing and car songs; his first
marriage and the birth of his children; drug and alcohol abuse; psychological
disintegration; years of oppressive control by Dr. Landy; a remarkable and
transformative romance with (eventual second wife) Melinda Ledbetter (not to
mention her own backstory); and Brian's eventual reemergence and resurrection.
Rather than providing us with a standard chronology of that
life from childhood through old-age, as in films such as Walk the Line
(2005) [about Johnny Cash] or Ray (2004) [about Ray Charles], which typically focus on musical performances
interspersed with behind the scenes vignettes from throughout the subject's
life; director Bill Pohlad was after something else. Brian Wilson was not an
especially dynamic performer, so filling a movie with lots of concert footage
would not get at the essence of his story. Instead, Pohlad decided that the
movie needed to focus on Brian's mind – his creative genius and his inner
turmoil.
But how do you capture genius? Or a descent into mental
illness? (And is there a connection between the two?) How do you incorporate
sufficient personal and historical context to make a compelling, relatable
story, a drama that engages our emotions, and provides an abiding sense of
Brian Wilson's struggles and redemption? Pohlad’s solution was to focus on two
key moments in Brian Wilson’s life: the period 1965-66 when Brian was creating
his masterpiece and simultaneously descending into his personal hell; and the
period in the late 1980s when he met Melinda and escaped the clutches of Landy
with her help. The picture flips back and forth between these two times – but
it’s never confusing.
For one thing, Pohlad uses two different actors to play
Wilson. Paul Dano (Ruby Sparks [2012]) plays young Brian, and while not
a doppelganger, is actually made up and styled to look quite a bit like him.
Dano brilliantly captures the twenty-three year old’s creative exuberance, his
professional perfectionism, and the dawning recognition that the music he’s
hearing in his head, which he is bringing to life in the studio, really is
something new and special. At the same time, he conveys Brian’s anxiety, his
loneliness and sense of alienation, and his terror and confusion as his mental illness increasingly asserts itself.
John Cusack has the role of the older Brian twenty some
years later – a shell of his former self, a soulful, but beaten-down child-man,
a guy on a very short leash held by his therapist, manager, and controller, Eugene Landy, Ph.D. (Paul Giamatti). Cusack conveys Brian Wilson physically and emotionally, without looking
much like him. We first meet this incarnation - referred to in the credits as
“Brian Wilson-Future” - at an L.A. Cadillac dealership where he meets saleswoman
Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks). Although trailed by his entourage of
so-called bodyguards - in reality, his keepers – Brian manages some alone time
with Melinda in a vehicle, where he somewhat awkwardly connects with her and
slips her a little note, before being corralled by Landy and escorted away. The
note reads “lonely, scared, frightened”.
Only later does Melinda learn that this strange yet compelling man is a
celebrity. As played by Cusack, future Brian has a haunted, almost brooding
look. We can see that there is a person inside trying get out, but the guy is
so damaged and constrained by uncertainty and overmedication that expressing
himself is a Herculean struggle. Brian seems to sense, however, that Melinda is
worth struggling for.
Aside from the two different actors, scenes with “Brian
Wilson – Past” and “Brian Wilson – Future” are also recognizably different
because of their different points of view. The story of 23-year-old Brian is
seen from his point of view, inside his head so to speak. The story of
middle-aged Brian is largely from Melinda's perspective, and we empathize with
him through her.
It should not be surprising that sound plays an important
role in a film about a musician, but the use of sound and music in Love and
Mercy is truly remarkable - a primary reason that the picture works so
well. For example, Pohlad and composer Atticus Ross (who, with Trent Reznor,
did the music for The Social Network and The Hunger Games), are
able to encapsulate the pre-1965 musical history of Brian and the Beach Boys at
the very outset of the movie via brief samplings of their hits coupled with a
rapid collage of images, all in about one minute. During the 1965-66 sequences
in particular, the sound design makes us feel like we are eavesdropping on
Brian Wilson's mind. Brian suffered from auditory hallucinations. These may
have informed his musical creativity, but they were also a leading symptom of
his illness. During moments when he is composing or working with studio
musicians (including the renowned Wrecking Crew), we too can hear the music in
his head. As he explains the sound that he is looking for to his musicians,
we've already heard it - or snippets of it, at least. Sometimes Brian will
insist on rehearsing a section over and over again, until it starts to seem
obsessive – until we hear the finished product, that is, when it sounds just
perfect. I found this exhilarating.
But we are also inside his head sometimes when Brian's
hallucinations are freaking him out. His fear and confusion at such moments are
tangible to us. For example, at a celebratory dinner party following the
successful release of Good Vibrations,
in which everyone is happily talking and eating, Brian stops hearing the
conversation – instead, he hears only the sounds of forks and knives clinking
and scraping, getting louder and louder, until he has to jump up and shout
STOP! and runs out of the room. I
totally got it – I was about to do the same!
The soundscape is interesting in other ways, too. If you
watch this at home, and particularly if you have any sort of home theater
system, I recommend that you turn the volume up fairly high. Not only will this
enhance some of the above-described effects, but it will allow you to pick up
some of the background sound, which you might otherwise miss. For example,
during quite a few of the 1965 sequences, such
as at the recording studio, by the pool, in Brian's living room, or
wherever music is playing – the music that Brian, the band or their friends
were listening to at the time could quietly be heard, on my system at least,
from my rear speakers, even while the relevant conversations were taking place
"in front" of me. Almost seemed like I was there.
In addition to his internal demons, Wilson had to struggle
with multiple antagonists in the “outside” world. Before Dr. Landy, there was
Murray Wilson (Bill Camp), an arrogant, overbearing and occasionally violent
bully of a father, from whom Brian vainly sought approval or at least respect,
and with whom he had a love-hate relationship not unlike that of Mozart with
his Papa. And as Brian became more and
more obsessive and esoteric with his musical compositions, he provoked
increasing opposition and even animosity from the other Beach Boys, especially
his cousin, Mike Love (Jake Abel), who couldn’t understand the increasingly
trippy and “arty” song lyrics (“What the hell does ‘sunny down snuff I’m all
right’ mean?”) and resented the increasing reliance on studio musicians to the
exclusion of the Beach Boys themselves.
While the 1965 sequences are about the interplay between
Brian Wilson's most creative period and his psychological disintegration, the
late 1980s portion of the movie depicts both the pathos and the drama of
Wilson's nadir and resurrection: Landy’s shameful appropriation of Brian’s
life, fortune and career, and the effort it took to set Brian free.
Paul Giamatti has played his share of bad guys over the
years - it seems to be a subspecialty for him.
Dr. Gene Landy may be his sleaziest villain yet, with a performance
ranging from quiet, almost charming duplicity to raging psychopathic monster. Giamatti plays a somewhat similar character in
this year’s Straight Outta Compton - as NWA’s manager, Jerry Heller -
but where Heller was merely greedy, Landy is pure evil. While he did not cause
Brian Wilson’s downfall – the mental illness and substance abuse long preceded
Landy’s appearance on the scene – lordy, he sure took advantage, and once in
control he would not let go. Not
willingly, at any rate.
Love and Mercy starts with Brian's meeting with
Melinda and over the course of the movie paints a fascinating and moving portrait of their lovely, convoluted romance, and of her gutsy efforts on his behalf. Melinda’s character may be bit
too good to be true (or so it seemed to me); but Elizabeth Banks gives a fine,
sympathetic and ultimately rousing performance that helps end Love and Mercy
on a high note. (And with her warmth and beauty, she also has leaped onto my
ever-expanding cinema girlfriend list.)
You don’t have to be a Beach Boys aficionado to like Love
and Mercy. But bits and pieces of
many of Brian Wilson’s most enchanting
songs do fill out the soundtrack of this film. There’s an especially lovely bit
where Paul Dano, as young Brian, touchingly sings the newly penned God Only Knows, accompanying himself on piano.
There’s another scene near the end of the movie where we see Wilson
lying on his massive bed staring up at the ceiling; initially it’s middle aged
Brian, but then it’s 23-year old Brian and then it’s Brian as a little kid, and
then back up the age ladder; Brian envisions moments from throughout his
troubled life and is integrating all that’s happened to him. The soundtrack is
playing ‘Til I Die, an introspective
song about uncertainty that Wilson and the Beach Boys recorded in 1966, with a
repeated coda, “ These things I’ll be until I die, These things I’ll be until I
die, … “
If you are not very familiar with this stuff, I imagine you
may be won over.
121 minutes
Available streaming
from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, Xfinity OnDemand (pricey), and on
DVD/Blue-ray from Netflix
